Dear Reader —

As we burn into the New Year, please allow me a rare and humble opportunity as Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of GO INSIDE, to spend a private moment and share the vision of where our hearts and minds will take you inside in 1997.

Where We Were
A few years ago, GO INSIDE was merely a wandering whim of a want of a “What If?”

What would happen, I wondered, if there were an online magazine that didn’t drill you will animated GIFs, secret cabal alliances, Ad banners and wacky background graphics?

What if there were a place that any web surfer could go and be assured that what they read was the simple truth with no hidden agenda or secret sub-level purpose for picking one side over another?

What if there were a magazine with no vested interest in the outcome of a review or an editorial because all the writers wrote for free and the public didn’t have to pay to read what was written?

Could this online magazine be interesting, frameless, and mainly text based without stories in tables so virtually any browser around could easily see all the stories?

Would readers respond to one big “index” page where all the articles were listed no matter what their age and rely upon Visited Links to tell them what they had and had not read? If so, this would allow us to be “issueless” and publish and revise stories dynamically as often as we like without being tied to deadlines or volume restrictions. This would make us truly an “online” magazine and play to the strength of being unbound.

Would this magazine work?

The answer to that question is, thankfully, “yes” and the monument to that initial whim is GO INSIDE.

GO INSIDE was born of pure intent and it shall remain so forever. Since there are no Ads and since no writer is paid for their work — you are guaranteed that what you read is the truth as we know it. Some call us the Consumer Reports of the Internet — I believe we do Consumer Reports one better because we don’t need nor beg contributions from our readers in order to publish GO INSIDE.

The only thing we ask from you in return for the work we do here is your continued interest in reading what we write and your feedback if you feel like offering it to us.

Where We Are
As of this moment, GO INSIDE has over 17,300 daily readers and that translates into over 519,000 readers a month. Our muscle in the industry comes directly from the flex of your user sessions. These readership numbers are incredible and staggering! Each month we see a ~1,897 bump up of new readers a day! Our growth has been phenomenal thanks to you and we do thank you!

GO INSIDE is truly a unique virtual magazine. We’ve created the model for a vibrant online magazine and set the industry standard for excellence in the process.

There’s no World Wide Headquarters for the magazine. We don’t all work under one roof. GO INSIDE writers are located across the globe and that gives us a universal appeal that few other magazines, printed or online, can match.

If you take a look at just our masthead, our Editors hail from New York City, New York — Johannesburg, South Africa — Medina, Ohio — Ogden, Utah — Gulf Breeze, Florida and Kent, Washington! That geographic smattering of the World gives us an intimate sampling for the common issues that concern you on the Internet.

Where We Will
During 1997, you’ll witness lots of changes as we expand our coverage to computer book reviews, server software critiques and other surprises I don’t yet want to spill. You can stay on top of the latest news by visiting us often.

We plan to continue to publish new writers and to expand our masthead with even more dedicated GO INSIDE Editors.

We will continue to seek out and bleed on the cutting edge of the Internet so you won’t have to — unless, of course, you want to pull up a blade and bleed right along with us. If you go with us, be sure to jot down some notes and report your adventures right back here detailing the joys and the wounds received while risking the razor’s edge — for those very cuts and cackles are the indelible medals of being an GO INSIDE author.

We also plan to bring more women writers into the GO INSIDE fold. As women tamed the Wild West, so shall they civilize the World Wild Web, and we want to be right there with them as the transmogrification from a Man’s World on the Web to Everyone’s World Wide Web becomes a reality.

The most important part of GO INSIDE will always be… you. With your continued good faith, we’ll continue to create the covenant you turn to for why what goes down inside the Internet.

Best Wishes for a Hearty New Year,

David Boles
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief